A HAPPY SUNDAY.

"HERE'S Sunday come again," said Leonard, yawning, as he left the breakfast-table; "I hate Sunday."

"So do I," said Harry, catching the infection, and stretching himself out lazily.

"I scarcely wonder at that, my dear boys," said Myra gently, "if you always spend it as you did the last one. I made no remark, because I had so lately come, but I felt sorry for you."

"What a curious thing! I thought you would be vexed with us for hating Sunday," said Leonard, looking inquisitively at her.

"I am not pleased, of course, but I hope to see you love it some time. Come, Elsie, let me hear something about it, darling."

Elsie jumped from her chair, and standing with her little hands clasped behind her, she began:

"'Happy, happy Sunday, We will not toil to-day, But leave till busy Monday Lessons, work, and play.

"'It is our happy holy day, It tells of God and heaven; Oh, let us give up one day To Him who gave us seven.'"

"Who taught you that? When did you learn that?" exclaimed several voices at once.

"Sister Myra taught me. She knows everything," said the little maiden triumphantly.

"What does it mean about giving it up, I wonder? I am always more tired on Sunday than any day in the week," said Harry.

"Tired of yourself, tired of doing nothing, are you not, Harry?"

"I daresay that is it; and Sunday must be made for something better than that, of course."

"Sunday belongs to the religion of Jesus, doesn't it, Myra? So I am sure we ought to like it if we could," said Florence.

"If you should love the religion of Jesus, you will soon love and enjoy His day, 'the Lord's day,' as His disciples called it. For you may imagine what it would be, after they had seen Him murdered and buried, and were mourning for Him in secret as one loved and lost, and whose death had crushed all the bright hopes they had indulged about Him, to hear that on the first day of the next week He was alive again, had sent them a loving message, and was ready to meet and bless them again as soon as they could come to Him. Then they knew that all He had said was true, that all He had promised He could perform, and they met astonished friends with the joyful shout, 'He is risen, He is risen from the dead!' Well might they celebrate that wonderful day with songs of praise and deep thanksgiving."

"I daresay they might," said Margaret, "but what does it matter to us all this long time after?"

"Everything, dear Margaret. The rising again of the Son of God from the grave shows Him to be the Holy One who died to save His people from their sins; you and me, Margaret, if we believe in Him. And it is the pledge of our resurrection in due time, for He said to His trusting servants,—

"'Because I live, ye shall live also.'

"And when we feel that all Jesus did, and is, and will yet do, is for us, that we may be forgiven and saved, and made partakers of His glory, we gladly hail our Christian right to one day of the seven, on which to give Him special honour, to worship Him, read and hear His word, and learn more and more how best to serve and please Him. You see, our pleasure in His day depends entirely on our love to Himself. The observance of it is good for every one, for every family and every nation, because God has said so; but the happiness of it is the enjoyment of those only who value His work, and desire to be His, now and for ever."

"I thought religion meant going to church, and reading good books on a Sunday."

"Religion, dear sister, is really the reuniting to the Lord God of that which sin separated from Him; only He could plan the way to do it; for poor sinful creatures would never have even wished, of themselves, reunion with the holy God. So He sent His dear Son to tell us of His love and pity for us, to die instead of us, suffering what we deserved, and taking our human nature up with Him into the presence of His Father and our Father, His God and our God, there to feel for our sorrows, to pardon our sins when we are grieved about them ourselves, to hear our prayers, to intercede for our benefit, to give His Holy Spirit, and to make everything that happens work for our good. That glorified divine and human Saviour is the link that reunites God and man; and faith is the link that unites the sinner to Christ. Do you understand me, dears?"

"I think I see it," said Harry; "believing in Him, what you call faith, unites to Jesus, and Jesus unites to God. He is in the middle, between us."

"Yes, in His human nature dwells the loving, gracious God who planned it all: as it is written,—

"'God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.'

"Faith is the gift of God, and the union thus formed influences the affections of our hearts and the conduct of our lives, so as to produce what the Bible calls 'fruits of the Spirit; love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,' and such like. Are they not lovely fruits and sweet flowers? And shall we not like to have them growing up beautifully among us? This is real religion."

"I am sure we shall," said Florence; "but we have not many of them yet."

"Oh, we will have patience, dear Florrie; 'with God all things are possible;' and He is very patient and longsuffering."

"I should like to please Him, Myra," said Florence softly. "I will try to remember and do what is right always, and then perhaps He will love me."

"Dear Florrie, you have not caught yet the meaning of what I have said. God does not want us to buy His love, nor to try and do what is impossible.

"'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.'

"That is, to be the offering, the atonement, through which the loving Father could honourably and justly receive back to favour those who have rebelled against and grieved Him. The religion of Jesus is a religion of love.

"'God so loved the world that He gave His Son.'

"Christ proved His love by His work for us; and when, by the gift and grace of His Holy Spirit, we are so impressed with it as to love Him because He first loved us, it is like seed cast upon good ground, springing up in every sweet fair thing that thoughts, words, and deeds can accomplish for Him. This, you see, is not doing things to make God love us, which is a gloomy, hard mistake, and keeps one in a constant fret and uncertainty about succeeding at last,—but a free and happy life of loving obedience. It is the most miserable thing possible to displease one whom we dearly love and who we know loves us,—is it not?"

"I am sure it ought to be," said Harry; "and is this the sort of love that makes people choose to deny themselves and take up crosses of their own accord?"

"Yes, when the cross lies in the path of duty, as we find God's will taught in His word, but not that cross or that sort of self-denial that some people invent for themselves, and claim merit and reward for."

"Does anybody do that?" asked Margaret.

"Yes, many do make that sad mistake, and distress themselves with what they call penances, and charities, and rounds of devotional services, thinking that the pure, loving God will favour them and save them for it, though He has distinctly said that we are redeemed only by the blood of Christ, and that we can add nothing to its value."

"Why, Myra, I do believe those crusaders that we read about thought that going to get Jerusalem from the Turks was to please God and win heaven for themselves."

"You are right, Harry. They were taught so by the priests and monks; and the pope proclaimed pardon of all sins to those who drew their swords against infidels. It is a dreadful mockery of poor anxious hearts, and a great blasphemy of the grace of God, so to deform Christianity and misrepresent salvation. Oh, Harry, if you could see the shocking ignorance of God, and of everything good and true, among the poor Italian people, where nothing but the religion, as they call it, of popery has ever been taught for hundreds of years, and where the pope himself has lived and reigned, you would shrink with pain and indignation from a system that makes bargains of human souls, and leaves the heart and character worse than it finds them."

"Some people go into convents and monasteries to got made good, don't they?"

"I am afraid many are deceived by that fancy, and find out too late that no walls, not even the most beautiful, no chanted prayers, the most incessant, no penances, the most austere,—can touch the root of sin, nor keep the unruly wills and affections in order for half an hour. In fact, they are more rampant and unruly and troublesome than when scope is given for their use and exercise in the world they were made for while in a mortal body. God does not grudge our love for friends, and pleasant things, and personal enjoyments, while we receive them thankfully from Him, and do not forget Him in His kind gifts. We are to try and be like our dear Saviour, who never shut Himself up from human society, and even met Satan himself in the wilderness when His duty required it.

"'We need not bid, for cloistered cell, Our neighbour and our work farewell, Nor strive to wind ourselves too high For mortal man beneath the sky;

"'The trivial round, the common task, Would furnish all we ought to ask;— Room to deny ourselves, a road To bring us daily nearer God.'"

"But," said Margaret, in a dissatisfied tone, "everybody is not religious in this way, Myra, or if they are, nobody knows it."

"Christianity—the religion of the Bible, of Jesus—always speaks in some way, dear Margaret; if the lips are silent, the life declares it. 'Every tree is known by its fruit,' you know."

"But if people do not think much about—about what you have been telling us, what are they to do?"

"Make haste to think about it, and learn what the Lord God has done for them as soon as possible," said Myra.

"It seems to me," said Margaret gloomily, "you mean to say that papa and mamma and Helen are not gone to heaven."

"Oh, Margaret, for shame!" cried Harry and Florence. "She said nothing of the sort."

"But she means that."

"I assure you, Margaret, that they have not once been in my thoughts during our conversation, until you have brought them there now."

"Well?" said Margaret inquiringly.

"'Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.'

"That is, the name of Jesus," said Myra, in a firm and gentle voice.

"'And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.'"

"If that's in the Bible, I don't like it," cried Margaret.

"There is more than that in the Bible, dear sister," added Myra; "but those are true statements, nevertheless. Now listen to this."

And she read the story of Jesus walking on the water to His disciples in the tempest-tossed ship.

"What I want you to notice is Peter's cry, and the Lord's instant answer. Peter was sinking; he felt he should be lost; there was no power in himself to stand upon those rocking waves. In his agony, he cried, 'Lord, save me!' and immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand and caught him."

The children all gazed upon Myra with intense interest and attention as she continued,—"Now, the miracles of our Lord were not only proofs of His power, but they were also emblems of His truth, and illustrations, in natural things, of His power and grace in spiritual things. Peter's condition when sinking in the sea is like that of a sinner sinking to everlasting destruction, if no hand is near to save. Peter's cry brought the hand of Jesus instantly to his help; the sinner's cry of real belief in His power and pity brings the arm of Jesus around the sinner's soul, snatching from eternal death, and raising to eternal life.

"'Call upon Me,' He says, 'in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee.'"

"Oh, Margaret, let us hope and think they called," whispered Florence in Margaret's ear.

"But we don't know," persisted Margaret.

"Listen again," said Myra.

And she read the story of the dying thief on the cross by the side of the Lord Jesus.

"Now it is not likely that the people who were moving about and looking on, during that awful scene, knew what was passing between the Lord and the penitent thief. And when the soldiers came to see that they were dead, they little thought that the soul of one of those poor convicts was gone with Jesus to Paradise. History would never have recorded it; the friends of the man—if he had any—did not know it, but the wise, kind Lord bade His servant afterwards relate it, for the comfort of—yes, even of such as we are."

"But, Myra, suppose there was no time to think or speak, no power, perhaps."

"Well, listen yet again, dear Margaret."

And Myra read the story of the brazen serpent.

"Just imagine the utter helplessness of those bitten, dying creatures; they had no power to do a single thing to save themselves from the poisonous fangs of the deadly reptiles; and it would have mocked their agony to bid them perform some act of devotion. They were bidden to look, only to look, at the brazen serpent which Moses held up; and whoever looked was healed. Oh, fancy the eager uplifting of the drooping eyelid, the sudden animation of hope that could not be disappointed. And,—

"'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.'

"The look now is the look of faith that no other eye can see, and only God can know, until either on earth or in heaven the happy news is told. Dear Margaret, these things—

"'. . . were written for our learning, that we . . . might have hope.'—

"Hope for our dear ones whose end we did not see, hope for ourselves in dark and helpless days. But not one word of hope or promise is given to delay, to unbelief, while we live to choose between God and sin, faith and unbelief. Now is our opportunity, to-morrow may be too late. The religion of Jesus is to teach us how to live and serve, as well as to give peace when we come to die."

"It is a wonderful book, this Bible," said Harry; "I never thought there were such interesting things in it. Why, there is nothing we can say or think that you cannot answer out of it."

"Just look at the time," cried Florence; "why, we shall only just get to church in time for the English service at twelve. We have talked ever since breakfast."

"And about religion too, and we are not tired!"

After dinner, they all took a walk as far as little Elsie's power allowed, and Myra sat down on the grassy bank while the children filled her lap with the lovely autumnal wild flowers.

"Why, Myra, what are you doing?" cried Harry, coming to her with a second handful. "You have spoiled that pretty flower that I asked you the name of. What made you open it so wide?"

"I am sorry if you wanted it again," said Myra, "but I never saw one like it before; and the exquisite shading of colour in its delicate leaves, and the soft lines diverging from the centre both inside and out, beguiled me into destructiveness even in my admiration. Besides that, I was thinking."

"What about, Myra? I like to know your thoughts."

"I was thinking of a great difference between man's works and God's works. The closer we look into man's doings of all kinds, the more we detect imperfection, and our appreciation is either diminished or exhausted; but the more minutely we examine into everything God makes or does, the more we are obliged to admire and wonder. This pretty flower under the microscope would reveal infinite perfection in form and colour, beyond what we see with the naked eye; but put the finest painting that the greatest artist ever executed under the same scrutiny, and what coarseness, what daubing it would display! Man aims at effect; God produces perfection."

"Myra, are you always thinking religion?" asked Harry earnestly.

"Can we help thinking of what we love?" said Myra, smiling.

"I want to ask you something, may I?"

"Surely you may, dear brother; and I will answer if I can."

"Are we your cross? Are you denying yourself to stay with us?"

Myra looked surprised, and the colour rose over her face, but she answered frankly,—

"At first I felt something like it, Harry, for you all seemed not to want me, but now I am feeling it less every day. And if there is any self-denial in it, I am glad to prove that I can deny myself for Christ's sake and yours."

"But do not crosses and self-denials make people unhappy? I can't bear you to be unhappy."

"Do not fear it, darling brother," said Myra; "I am just where I like to be, and where I think my Lord wishes me to be. Anything else would make me unhappy. Now kiss me, and promise that you will put such fancies out of your head from this minute."

Harry gave her one of his bouncing kisses.

"Suppose God should wish you to go away, how would you know, Myra?"

"If it should please Him to do something better for you all, and show me that I am not needed, then I should go."

"But suppose He had something better for 'you,' Myra?" queried the persevering boy.

"That cannot be, Harry," she replied, after another feeling of surprise at the question. "Nothing can be better for any one than the path of duty, in which only we find peace and blessing."

Harry seemed satisfied at last, and after tea they read and talked over the subject of it. And Myra sang, in her best style, English and Italian hymns, to their great delight, and all joined in regret when bed-time came to end the shortest Sunday they had ever spent.